


Not The Absence Of Fear

by Veridique



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Divergent AU, nothing graphic on either count, warning for some violence and mild dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-18 16:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 15,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15490032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veridique/pseuds/Veridique
Summary: As the new class of initiates fight for spots in Dauntless, they explore what kind of life they have chosen, and what kind of people they will become.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an edited version of a fic I posted a few years ago on FFN (if you love me please don't go looking for it, this version is better)
> 
> For the sake of thorough warnings: the violence is in the context of Dauntless initiation, and isn't any more graphic than what's in the original book. The dubcon (likewise, nothing more sexual than the original text) takes place between characters who are adults in the original show, but who have been aged down for the sake of the AU so that they are underage

Here they are: all the new Dauntless initiates for the year. May scans the group: the familiar faces of the Dauntless-born who chose to return home smile expectantly, waiting eagerly to find out what the next adventure is. She notices a few missing faces, and immediately moves the thought from the forefront of her mind. This is no time to mourn the people who have left. Later, perhaps, in private where no one will see her and remind her that faction comes before blood. She doesn’t need to be reminded again.

Instead, she looks on the new faces: plenty of transfers from Candor and none from Abnegation, like usual. There are a couple specks of Erudite blue, and—she blinks once or twice to make sure she’s seeing right—one young woman dressed in the happy red and gold of Amity. Dauntless rarely receives transfers from Amity, and the few who do never make it past the first trip on and off the train. May evaluates the Amity girl’s face, to see if she’s panicking or shell-shocked from what’s probably the first rush of adrenaline she’s felt in her life, but the girl’s face is still and serene, calmly taking in her surroundings. _Well,_ May thinks, _I guess we’ll see how an Amity responds to fear._

“My name is May,” she announces. “I’m one of your Dauntless leaders. The entrance to Dauntless”—she gestures behind her—“is off that ledge.”

“What’s down there?” a Candor boy with dark hair asks.

She shrugs. “I didn’t ask.” It isn’t a lie, technically. “One of our transfers will have the honor of going first to find out what’s at the bottom.”

There is a murmur among the crowd of transfers, as the Dauntless-born jeer and take bets. Bobbi, a Dauntless-born, nudges her friend while staring at a Candor boy. “Bet he doesn’t have the guts to take the jump at all,” she taunts, making sure to speak loud enough for everyone to hear, including the boy in question. It’s a dare, pure and simple, and every Dauntless knows it.

The Candor boy knows it, too, and he can’t resist. _He’ll fit right in,_ May thinks, as the Candor boy mutters “Out of my way,” and pushes his way to the front. Though he acts cocky, May can see that his hands are balled so tightly into fists that his knuckles are white. He turns, winks at Bobbi, and jumps.

He cries out loudly enough for all of the other initiates to hear; all of them also hear when his scream suddenly stops. May lets the silence resound for a moment before asking “Who’s next?”

Most of the Dauntless-born are pushing and shoving one another for the opportunity to be the first Dauntless-born jumper. The dark-haired Candor boy who spoke up before is also fighting to be near the front. The Amity girl and the only Erudite boy hang back. One by one, the initiates take the plunge into the Dauntless compound until those two are the only ones left.

“One of you has got to go sometime,” May remarks, “or be factionless. Make your choice.”

“I’ll go,” the girl volunteers. She touches the boy on the arm. “I’ll see you down there, all right?”

“All right,” he replies, still ashen-faced. May sees the unspoken intent behind the girl’s actions: making the boy verbalize a promise to take the jump and meet her at the bottom lessens the chance he’ll choose to drop out, as he was surely considering. _The Amity may be fools,_ May thinks, _but they know how to get what they want from people._

__

The Amity girl takes a deep breath, holds onto her voluminous golden skirt, and jumps. Her jump is silent: no screams of terror or delight like most of the people before her. May turns to the boy. “Are you coming or not?”

__

He nods, not trusting his own voice. He steps up onto the ledge with shaky feet, and steps off into the darkness. His high-pitched scream pierces the air, and its sudden disappearance lets May know when he’s hit the net. She waits a moment, then follows him down into the darkness.

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is already completed, so updates will be coming regularly
> 
> Like all writers, I live on comments


	2. Chapter 2

“Transfers, this way!” a voice calls as Leo finds the Amity girl in the crowd. His legs are still shaking from the fall, but his face is flushed; he found the fall more exhilarating than frightening. “Sorry, I don’t think I caught your name,” he whispers, as they travel into the depths of the Dauntless compound.

She hesitates a moment, then says “Skye.”

He smiles. “Choosing a new name?”

She nods. “I don’t think my Amity name really fits me anymore.”

“Yeah, I understand that. I’m Leo, by the way. Leo Fitz.”

They arrive at a dormitory-style room with twelve beds. Everyone scrambles to lay claim to a bed in a preferable location. Skye slips through the mess, and by the time Leo finds her, she’s kneeling in the space between two beds, one hand on each. She sees him and grins. “Which do you want?”

Her grin looks so familiar it makes him homesick for a moment, but he hides the pang of guilt and sits on the left bed. Skye sits on the other one as the room falls silent, initiates all waiting for the next instruction.

They are given new black Dauntless clothes and told to change, with a vague gesture toward the sign reading “bathrooms” that implies a certain disregard for those who don’t want to strip in front of everyone. The dark-haired Candor boy has no reservations about modesty and pulls off his shirt before the leader is done speaking, revealing a torso far more chiseled than his conservative Candor suit would have let on.

“He’s certainly not shy,” Skye whispers to Leo.

“He doesn’t have anything to be shy about, far as I can tell,” Leo agrees as they hold their new outfits to their chests and quietly slip into bathroom stalls to change. 

When they exit, Leo is stunned by how much clothing can change a person’s appearance. Skye, previously clad in a red tunic and a big gold skirt, now looks much older in a black T-shirt and loose black pants. She clearly feels odd as well; she keeps her arms crossed over her chest, with her hands rubbing her bare arms as if to protect them.

When he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he freezes. He’s become so accustomed dressing in smart blue suits that now, wearing all black, he looks exactly like the “hooligans” his father has always complained about at the dinner table. _Would Jemma even recognize me?_ he wonders, then forces himself not to think about it. 

The next step in becoming fully Dauntless is to burn the clothes of their old factions. Like the jump into the Dauntless faction, Leo hangs back, wanting to cling to his favorite blue plaid tie for as long as possible; he’s never seen a Dauntless wearing a tie, and he’s barely been seen without one since he was ten. Unlike him, Skye is near the front of the line, tossing her red and gold garments onto the bonfire and striding away, as if they’re a burden she’s glad to be rid of. Leo takes one last glance at his tie, of the memories of spills and smoke and Jemma’s laugh, before laying his blue outfit to rest on its funeral pyre. As he watches the flames catch the fabric, he can feel a piece of himself burning to ash beside it.

As he leaves the room with the bonfire, he enters a large communal dining room, with long wooden tables filled with people who are all talking and laughing and fighting merrily. He joins the rest of the transfer initiates at an otherwise empty table. They each take food from the plates in the center, and amid the cacophony of the other Dauntless, Leo misses the peace of his old home, the dinner table where he and Jemma would eagerly discuss their latest project, where their parents would give tips and pointers, where he and his sister would scarf down their food so they could run back upstairs and continue working. 

But then the other initiates start joking and teasing, calling Leo and the two Erudite transfer girls “brains without brawn,” and the larger of the two girls offers to show the name-caller just how much brawn she’s got. A fistfight almost ensues, only stopped when someone bounces a dinner roll off the girl’s head and tells her to sit down. And somewhere in between that squabble, and the warm food, and the stories of so many different homes, he forgets to miss his own home for just a little while.


	3. Chapter 3

_If this is all Dauntless initiation is,_ Ward thinks while attacking a punching bag, _I’ve got it made._ While many of the other transfers are struggling to figure out how to hold their bodies and move their limbs, Ward easily slips into the role of combatant, even if his opponent is made of canvas.

“You’re a natural,” May comments as she circles the room. “You do this a lot in Candor?”

“I like to keep my body strong,” he responds, punctuating his statement with another round of punches.

“Keep it up and you’ll be on a fast track to somewhere good,” she advises him, before moving on to correct the form of another initiate. 

Ward pauses to look around the room at the others to see if anyone is on par with him. Most Candor can hold their own in the type of casual fistfight that erupts in a faction where everyone is honest, but few have put the hours into training that Ward has. The Amity girl is barely tapping her punching bag, as if she’s afraid she’ll hurt it. Of the three Erudite, the boy and one of the girls are almost as bad as the Amity girl, but the taller girl might be a force to be reckoned with. She doesn’t have as much brute force as Ward, but her technique is flawless, and she isn’t afraid to hit as hard as she can.

May notices the tall girl as well, and after an hour of sparring with the punching bags has passed, she calls everyone to the ring in the center of the training room. She calls up another instructor, and the two of them take their positions in the ring. 

“This is how your rankings will be determined in Dauntless,” she explains. “You’ll fight one another in the ring. This is civilized fighting, but it’s Dauntless civilized. That means no eye gouging, no biting, and try not to kill each other. Other than that, do what you have to do to ensure you’re the last one standing.”

“We’ll give you a demonstration,” the other leader adds, “and after that, we’ll have the first initiate fight of the year.”

From the way May looks at the tall girl and Ward, he knows they’ll be the ones to fight. He knew the Dauntless were ruthless, but he didn’t know he’d be forced to attack another initiate on his first full day in the faction. He isn’t worried about whether he can win; he is worried about what sort of reputation he’ll get if he is the first one to knock someone out cold. Will the Dauntless find that an impressive show of bravery, or will they find him too bloodthirsty, even for them? 

By the time May is dragging her opponent off the mat and ushering him on, he still doesn’t know what to do. Should he throw the fight? May will certainly know if he does; the Erudite girl is good, but he is better. Can he hold himself back enough to make it look like an even match, to avoid beating the girl to a pulp? That is the best course of action, he decides, but he isn’t sure whether he’ll be able to control himself once the fight begins.

As they circle each other, Ward can see the girl is even more nervous than he is. He is bigger and stronger than her, and he knows that she doesn’t have the same experience in fights. Her first punches, while strong in technique, are shaky and weak, and he deflects them easily. Growing bored of waiting around, he strikes. He aims for her nose, but she’s quick, and his fist only glances her cheek. It’s not as solid a blow as he would have liked, but he knows it still hurts. She feints, only to land a kick against his ribs. It’s a good kick, but it lacks power. He aims a punch for her gut. She crumples to the ground. _Whatever textbook she memorized forgot to mention that punches hurt,_ he thinks wryly. He is about to raise his foot back and kick her in the ribs before he remembers his plan. He will not kick his opponent while she is down. That’s low. That’s dirty. That’s not Dauntless.

He allows her to stagger to her feet. Everyone watching the fight knows that he’s going easy on her, but she still seems to believe she has a chance. Her attacks have renewed vigor, but they still aren’t strong enough to do any real damage. He allows her a few more, then decides to finish this. Maneuvering behind her, he puts her in a headlock and drags her to the ground. As soon as he feels her go limp, he releases his hold. May told them not to kill each other, and he plans to obey that rule. She is unconscious, but she’ll come to in a moment.

Her pride, well, that may never return.


	4. Chapter 4

Hunter understands why the transfers and Dauntless-born are kept separate in training—what Ward did to the tall Erudite transfer is nothing compared to what any of the Dauntless-born could do to any of the transfers—but he doesn’t understand why none of the transfers are willing to go up to the Dauntless-born table at meals and sit. He has neither seen nor heard of a rule against it, so on the third day of training, he takes a seat at the table amongst the Dauntless-born initiates.

Most of the Dauntless-born give him strange looks but stay quiet. Part of him wishes that they would come out and say what they’re thinking, but he knows that he’s not in Candor anymore, and that’s not acceptable behavior here. So he accepts their stares and whispers without comment. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” a girl’s voice comes from behind him. He turns to see a blonde Dauntless-born—the same blonde Dauntless-born who goaded him into jumping first.

“I think I’m having lunch,” he answers nonchalantly.

“At this table?”

“I’m Dauntless now, same as you,” he counters.

She saunters up even closer to him, using her impressive height to her advantage. “You do realize,” she says, a saccharine kind of danger in her voice, “that I could put you on your ass without breaking a sweat?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It means you’re not as Dauntless as I am.”

He’s starting to understand the social structure here. These challenges are frequent and winners are judged quickly. If you falter even once, you lose. He is determined not to lose, especially not to this girl. “Yeah? Wanna bet?”

“Yeah,” she retorts. “Do something brave. If I don’t have the guts to do the same thing, except bigger and better, you win.”

He considers her proposal, then grins. “All right, then,” he says, standing up. “Here goes.” He approaches another Dauntless-born girl further down the table who’s been watching the whole ordeal. Leaning in close, he whispers a question in her ear. She giggles, glances at the blonde for a second, then nods. 

Hunter gives his challenger a smug smirk, then lands a deep kiss on the lips of a girl whose name he will never learn. He holds the kiss out longer than he normally would, just to prove his point, whispers “Thanks, love” to the girl, and returns to his seat, amid hooting and whistles. Grinning up at the blonde, he says “Your move,” then turns back to his sandwich.

Before he can take a bite, he feels a hand grab the back of his shirt and haul him upwards. He’s preparing himself for a sucker punch to the gut, and in a way, he gets one. It’s not from the blonde’s fist, however; it’s from his own stomach as she turns him around and kisses him hard. 

As soon as her lips touch his, he knows that she’s won the bet. This is, far and away, bigger and better than his kiss with the random girl. Her hands are on his face, fingers digging into his jaw to draw him deeper and deeper into the kiss. Her mouth is aggressive, trying to assert dominance over every inch of his mouth, as if it no longer belongs to him but to her. Her teeth scrape his lips as she repositions her mouth and body so that everyone watching—and by this point, there are a lot of people watching—knows without a doubt that she has kept up her end of the bet.

By the time she finally comes up for air, Hunter is more exhausted from the kiss than from the days of training he’s been struggling through. The blonde cocks her hip and remarked, almost casually, “Told you I’m more Dauntless.”

“That you are,” Hunter manages to breathe out as he scrambles away from the table, back towards the other transfers. “That you are.”


	5. Chapter 5

Fortunately, Skye isn’t as tired as she thought she’d be after two weeks of training. Years of climbing trees and racing through fields have strengthened her muscles and endurance far more than the studying or debates that the Erudite and Candor value. For her, the hardest part is not the physical challenges; it’s the mental aspects. In her first fight, she went down almost immediately because she couldn’t bring herself to hit her opponent. When she finally recovered, she saw May shaking her head. Leo was the only one to help her up, the one who ran to get tissues for her bloody nose.

“How are you holding up?” she asks him as they wait for the matches of the day to be listed. 

“All right. Better than you.”

“No, you’re not. I’m totally stronger.”

“No. I mean, you are, but that’s not what I meant. You don’t like hitting people.”

“And you do?” she asks, surprised.

“No, of course not.” He seems a bit insulted by the question. “But it’s what I have to do, right? To get into Dauntless.”

He’s right, and she knows it. The last time rankings were posted, he was fifth from the bottom among the transfers. According to May, the lowest five initiates will be cut and sent off to be factionless. If even one of the Dauntless-born scores lower than Leo, he’ll make the cut and make it into the next stage of initiation. 

Skye, on the other hand? She’s solidly at the bottom of the list.

Leo nudges her and whispers “Good luck” in her ear. May has just posted the pairings for the day’s fights. Skye is paired against Riley, a Candor boy who is near the top of the list. Skye hasn’t had any dealings with him, but he has kind eyes and an easy smile.

His eyes, she discovers, look less kind when seen from below after he swipes her legs out from under her. She jumps to her feet again, her pride hurt worse than her body.

_It’s what I have to do, right? To get into Dauntless._ Leo’s words echo in her mind, and she resolves to do what is necessary. She strikes a kick at Riley’s knee. It’s the first time she’s ever hit anyone with all of her strength, and the blow takes her aback. But it’s apparent that Riley is even more shocked than she is. He takes a swing at her, but she ducks and his arm goes over her head. Before he can respond, she jabs her elbow into his torso, and she’s shocked to hear a strange popping sound. Riley cries out and falls to the floor.

She stands over him, proud of her victory yet slightly disgusted with herself. “I’m done, right?” she asks May. “I’ve won.”

May shakes her head. “You haven’t won until he can no longer continue.”

“But he’s down,” Skye argues. “In a real fight, he’d be done.”

“In a real fight,” May counters, “you’d finish him.”

Skye understands what May is asking, but she wants to believe she’s wrong. “But…I don’t want to.”

“Why not?” May strides up to the edge of the ring. “Are you scared?”

In Amity, the correct answer is yes. Yes, I’m scared to make another person hurt. Yes, I’m scared that I will lose a friend. A person who admits fear in Amity will be comforted, reassured, protected. But here, that question is a dare, a challenge, a threat.

Skye makes eye contact with May, then flicks her eyes back to the boy at her feet. She doesn’t say a word. Her answer comes in the form of her knee, crashing into Riley’s face. She hears the sound of the blow and of Riley collapsing to the floor. Skye turns from her fallen opponent and walks away, whispering softly enough that only May can hear her response as she walks past: “No.”

Riley was a high-ranked opponent. Skye will certainly increase in the rankings because she beat him. She probably just improved her chances of being able to stay in Dauntless from impossible to merely unlikely. But she is starting to wonder if she made a mistake in choosing the embers. _Even if I’m allowed to stay,_ she muses, _can I?_


	6. Chapter 6

It’s the final day of Phase 1 of initiation. This is the final day of fights, of the physical side to being Dauntless. May has told them that the next phase is an emotional challenge, but she failed to elaborate on what that entails. But right now, Leo is more concerned with just making it to the next phase.

His ranking is still sixth out of ten. The transfers are not told what the scores of the Dauntless-born are, but Fitz can’t risk assuming even one of them is lower than his. If that assumption is false, he will be cut. And if he slides any more in the ranking, his odds of becoming a full-fledged Dauntless member grow even slimmer.

His one comfort is that Skye is no longer last. In fact, she is now ranked higher than him. Her fight with Riley marked a turning point for her. Her strength makes up for her slight stature, and as soon as she lost her fear of hitting people, she moved up quickly the ranks, to fourth. Regardless of how well the Dauntless-born score, if she can maintain her rank, she will have a spot in the second round of initiation.

He spots his own name in the list. He’s paired up against Alison, the taller of the two girls from Erudite. “Ooh, rough,” Skye comments when she sees his match. “She’s got a mean left hook.” She hesitates a moment before asking “Are you…are you going to be okay, fighting someone from your old faction?”

“Actually, I’ve been looking forward to this day for a really long time,” he confides.

“Really? You two don’t get along?” she asks.

“No, she…” He’s unsure of how much to tell Skye, how much he can say about his old home without being accused of being a faction traitor. “She said some mean things to my sister.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister. How old is she?”

“She’s my twin.”

“She didn’t choose Dauntless?”

“No, she stayed back in Erudite.” Eager to change the subject, he asks “Do you have siblings? Amity families are usually big, aren’t they?”

“Usually, yeah. But I’m an only child.” Off his curious look, she adds “My childhood was kind of…weird.”

“Oh, god,” he whispers, distracted from the discussion of old factions.

“What?” she asks.

“Look at who you’re paired with.”

Next to the name “Skye” on the chalkboard is the name “Ward.”

“Last fight of the day, too,” she notes. “Clearly they want a good show before they make their decision.”

“You’ll be able to do it,” he reassures her. “Even if you lose, you won’t lose many points. He’s ranked first for a reason. They can’t penalize you too much for losing to him.”

“Leo and Alison, you’re up,” May calls.

As he’s making his way into the ring, Skye stops him. “What’s your sister’s name?”

“Jemma,” he says. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud since the day he joined Dauntless, and the sound of her name is like a knife in his gut.

Skye nods. “Make Jemma proud.”

 _Jemma._ The name resonates in his head as he steps into the ring and faces Alison. As he looks into Alison’s eyes, the sound of Jemma’s sobs rings in his memory. _Make Jemma proud._

Alison strikes first, a punch aimed at his chest. He’s able to block it and deflect most of the impact, and he uses that momentum to take a shot at her face. It’s a cheap shot, sure, but Alison has taken some cheap shots, too.

_“What’s wrong, Jemma?”_

_“She called me”—she sniffles—“she called me a failure. She said my ideas are unoriginal and that no one likes me and that I’m never going to be anything but a suck-up.”_

A snap kick, straight to Alison’s ribs. He can’t quite break bone yet, but he does manage to knock the wind out of her. He uses that to his advantage, aiming a knee at her lower abdomen.

_“She didn’t mean it. I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”_

_“She did!” Jemma insists. “She did.”_

One more kick to the back of Alison’s knees, and she’s on the ground. Fitz grabs a handful of blond hair and aims for the nerve in her neck that he knows will render her unconscious. This is where Erudite training and studies of anatomy come in handy. He strikes and misses, but Alison cries out in pain all the same.

_“She’s just mean,” he says, trying to soothe her. “Some people are just mean.”_

_“Why?”_

_Leo hates not knowing things. He hates being unable to answer a question. But more than anything, he hates seeing his sister distraught. So it kills him to smooth her hair, to hold her close and whisper “I don’t know.”_

Another strike, and he feels the nerve respond to his hand. Alison goes limp, but her head remains upright because he’s still holding onto her hair. With more force than is strictly necessary, he throws her head against the floor of the ring. 

“That’s for Jemma,” he whispers, so softly no one will hear.


	7. Chapter 7

May rarely looks forward to fights where she knows the outcome, but she must admit that she’s itching to see Skye take on Ward. The undefeated champion versus the former Amity girl is a match she never thought would be anything close to fair, but Skye has proven herself to be stronger than any Amity would admit being. Skye is, without a doubt, more Dauntless than she appeared.

But even with Skye’s recent improvement, May knows that the fight will end with Skye on the ground. Still, she’s interested to see how long the small girl will last. Both fighters take their places. Skye’s body language says she’s clearly on the defensive, and May doesn’t blame her. Ward is tall and strong, and the last person unlucky enough to be paired with him got his shoulder dislocated. His screams as the doctors popped it back into place still echo in May’s ears.

Ward launches a few rapid-fire punches at Skye’s upper body. She manages to block and dodge the worst of them, before taking a blow to the sternum. She staggers but stays on her feet. She tries to kick him, but he grabs her leg and flips her onto the floor. She lands facedown and does not move. 

May checks her watch. Thirty seconds. Not the quickest fight Ward’s been in, but certainly faster than she thought Skye would go down. Ward turns and struts toward the edge of the ring.

Both he and May are completely unprepared for what happens next. Skye launches herself off the ground and grabs Ward by the throat, so her entire body weight is being supported by his neck. He falls backward, and Skye manages to move quickly enough so his head strikes the ground instead of her body. She gets on top of him, straddling his chest. With her left hand on his throat, she raises her right hand to punch.

In an impressive show of strength, he throws her off and positions himself on top of her, reversing their positions from before. She struggles, but he weighs far too much for her to repeat his movements. A few blows to the face, and she stops putting up any kind of fight. However, he keeps punching, even when everyone else has noticed that she is down.

“Ward!” May shouts. He doesn’t seem to hear her. “Ward! The fight’s over. You’re done.”

He continues to pummel Skye. May leaps into the ring and hauls him off his unconscious opponent. “You’re done,” she snarls, shaking him to wake him up from whatever is possessing him. Looking into his eyes, she sees the kind of bloodlust that she hasn’t seen in a long time. Then, like a switch has been flipped, he turns back into the quiet loner she’s seen through training. 

“Sorry, May,” he says, standing. “Lost control there for a second.” He smiles, as if this is some sort of joke, and leaves the training room.

After getting Skye to the medical center, May marches to the office of her superior and enters without knocking. “Ward is no longer a viable candidate for the leadership role,” she announces.

“Oh?” The man lifts his head. “And why’s that? Just the other day, you were singing his praises as the best transfer we’ve had in a long time.”

“He just tried to kill another initiate.”

“Were they paired in the ring?”

“Yes, and he—”

“So you were there to make sure things didn’t get out of hand?”

“Yes, and if I hadn’t—”

“Then I see no problem. Lots of people lose their heads in the heat of battle. That doesn’t disqualify him for leadership. If anything, it makes him a better candidate. He’s Dauntless.”

“He’s insane!”

The man turns back to his work. “Thank you very much for your input, May. You’re dismissed.”

“Sir—”

“I said, _you’re dismissed_.”


	8. Chapter 8

Ward is the only one whose heart isn’t racing as the initiates, both transfers and Dauntless-born, enter into the conference room for the final rankings to be revealed. He knows that he’s easily first of the transfers. Regardless of how the Dauntless-born scored, he knows he will advance to the next phase of initiation. But he is eager to see their scores, if only to match them against his own. He wants to see how he stacks up against those who have been training their whole lives for this.

First, the scores from the transfers are posted. The list looks like this:

1) Ward  
2) Hunter  
3) Skye  
4) Faith  
5) Leo  
6) Alison  
7) Riley  
8) Charlotte  
9) Luke  
10) Morgan

 

The bottom few are names Ward doesn’t even recognize: transfers from Erudite and Candor who didn’t stand out enough to be noticed. He mentally draws a line between Leo and Alison. Those above the line are guaranteed a spot in Phase 2. Alison and Riley are biting their nails, waiting to see if one or two of the Dauntless-born scored poorly enough to be cut, if they made it into the next phase. The other three aren’t even hoping; they already know that they will be kicked out.

The next list is posted, one with the Dauntless-born integrated into the list. Ward is no longer first; he’s third. Of the thirteen Dauntless-born, only two of them received higher scores than him. He notices many of the Dauntless-born eyeing him. By ranking so high, he’s made a name for himself, even among the elite of the initiate class. He doesn’t need to look at the rest of the list to see the results. Alison is cheering and hugging her friend Faith; Riley has crumpled to the ground, defeated. Only one of the Dauntless-born didn’t make it, and four transfers are now factionless.

Twenty-three initiates jumped into the Dauntless compound. Now they are eighteen. After Phase 2, they will be twelve. Many of the others will spend the night figuring the odds, trying to determine who will be part of that twelve, but not Ward. All he’s concerned about is not being part of the six.

Looking back at the list, he processes the names more carefully. The girl from Amity, Skye, somehow made it. He didn’t think much of her at first, but he has to admit that her surprise attack in the last fight caught him off-guard. He’d expect that sort of thing from an Erudite, who fight with their brains instead of their fists, but Amity? He considers it for a moment, then realizes it makes sense: Amity spend their lives trying to read other people, find out what they need and want, so that everyone can live happily in harmony. But he never would have guessed that that skill in reading people could be used in a fight. _Perhaps there’s more to little Skye than meets the eye,_ he ponders. _Perhaps I ought to find out what else she’s got up her sleeve._

May’s voice drives him out of his internal monologue. “Bottom five, follow me. I’ll escort you to the factionless sector of the city. Those of you who are still Dauntless, go back to the dorms and get some sleep,” she advises. “You have two days to rest before the real challenge begins.”

_The emotional tests._ Ward doesn’t know what those entail, but he has faith that they’ll be easier than the Candor initiation tests. Dauntless doesn’t disapprove of ruthlessness and violence the way most factions do.

Maybe he can be honest here, in the way he never could in Candor.


	9. Chapter 9

Hunter is pleased with his score. So when the tall blonde Dauntless-born appears in front of him, he decides to push his luck. “How’s it going, sweetheart?” he taunts.

“I see you’re ranked second best among the transfers,” she says without preamble.

“I’m touched,” he says, genuinely surprised. “You know my name.”

“I also noticed that I’m second best among the Dauntless-born,” she continues. “So now I suppose you know mine.”

After a quick glance back at the posted scores, he offers his hand. “Nice to meet you, Bobbi.”

“I’ve already had my tongue down your throat,” she points out. “I think we can skip the formalities.”

“As you please,” he replies. “So, did you come here for a reprise of that little incident, or…”

“I came because you’ve clearly got potential. You, me, the ring, midnight. Let’s see what you’ve got.” 

She turns sharply on her heel, and he calls after her “Am I allowed to bring witnesses, or do you want to have a bit of privacy?”

She pauses, and twists her upper half so she is facing him without fully turning around. “Up to you. I mean, we’ve already seen what you can do with an audience. I don’t know if you’ll be able to perform when it’s just you, all alone….” She lifts one eyebrow, then saunters away.

He makes it to the ring ten minutes early, so he can be waiting for her. Unfortunately, she must have had the same idea, because she’s leaning against the wall when he shows up. “You’re early,” he comments, to try to throw attention off himself.

“You seem like the kind of guy who makes a habit of coming early.” She doesn’t _need_ to raise her eyebrow to get the innuendo across, but she does all the same.

 _Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be._ “Now I’m starting to think you’re all talk.”

“Oh, I’m good at getting things done. The secret is to put your back into it.” 

He smirks. “All right, love. Let’s do this.” They step into the ring.

The fight is well-matched. She has the height advantage, but it’s slight, and their strengths are comparable. Watching her, he notices her telegraphing almost every move she makes. Once he starts paying attention to her body language, the extra milliseconds he gains in time to defend and strike back go a long way to compensate for her more extensive experience.

Finally, he misjudges one of her lunges, and she takes her opportunity. She knocks him to the floor, and lands on top of him, straddling his hips, hands on his shoulders. Both of them are breathing hard, sweating, and well aware of what sort of position they’re in. He eventually breaks the silence. “Ready for round two?”

She stands, offering him a hand up. “I’m always ready. But I figured you’d need to wait a little bit, let your engine cool down before it warms back up again.”

“Well, maybe we could do something else in the meantime.”

She snorts. “What, like roll over and fall asleep?”

 _That’s the last straw._ He lunges at her, intending to pin her against the opposite wall. Instead, he finds himself back on the floor, with her knee on his chest.

She leans in close to whisper in his ear. “One rule.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m in charge.”

The kiss that follows leaves him almost speechless, capable of only one word: “Agreed.”


	10. Chapter 10

Visiting Day. It’s the day every transfer dreads. Will their parents come? Will they try to make polite small talk with the child who chose to leave them? Will they berate them? Or will they not come at all, choosing to sever all ties with the faction traitor?

The only one who doesn’t seem bothered by the tension is Skye, but Leo doesn’t have the energy to wonder why that is. He’s too caught up in his own worries

“You need to eat,” she reminds Leo at breakfast, as he picks at his food.

“I’m not hungry,” he snaps, before leaving the table.

He retreats to the dorm and sits down on his bed, head in his hands. Skye finds him almost immediately and sits beside him. “So,” she asks, “are you more worried that they will come or that they won’t?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think they’ll come. They’re probably visiting my sister.”

“Well, maybe one of your parents could visit her, and the other could—”

“They won’t come,” he repeats, more harshly.

“Are they disappointed in you for choosing Dauntless?”

“I think they were more surprised than anything. Everyone expected Jemma and I to stick together for our whole lives. We’d both pick Erudite, work side by side, live in houses next door to each other...” Images of the life they could have led flash through his mind, and he swallows the urge to cry.

“And then you left. And she stayed.”

“I don’t regret it. And I don’t hold resentment for Jemma, either. I mean, she was one of the two brightest kids in our class.”

“Who was the other one?”

“Me.”

Skye smiles, but she looks shocked at the revelation that he could have been successful in Erudite. Most people only leave a faction if they know that they have no chance at a decent life. “Why did you leave?”

He pauses, choosing his words carefully. “Erudite is for people who value knowledge and learning. Jemma was always that person. I mean, she loves homework more than life itself.”

“And you don’t love learning?”

“No, I do. But I think there are things more important than knowledge. I’m smart, and I want to be smart, but that’s not the most important thing. For me, the most important thing is courage.”

He shifts in his seat. “Like I said, I don’t regret my choice, and I don’t begrudge her hers. But…I do miss her like hell.”

“I’m sure your parents understand,” Skye says, but he can hear in her voice that she doesn’t believe her own words.

“You know what no one saw coming? Me choosing Dauntless. I think they expected me to choose anything else, if I left. There I was, the biggest scaredy-cat in Erudite, and I choose Dauntless. But I think that’s part of what you need to really belong in a faction. I mean, if you’ve never been scared, how can you know how important bravery is?”

“I think that’s the smartest thing a brave person has ever said.” She pauses, then adds “Or maybe it’s the bravest thing a smart person has ever said.”

In the moment of closeness, he feels the need to make a confession. “I didn’t quite tell you the whole truth about my name when we first met.”

“Me neither,” she offers.

“Jemma and I, we didn’t talk about what factions we were choosing—that’d be against the rules, and Jemma likes following the rules—but we talked about what we’d do if we ended up in different factions. And we decided that we’d split our name. I’d take the first half of our last name, and she’d take the second. That way, Jemma and Leo Fitzsimmons would become Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz.”

“That’s sweet,” Skye remarks softly.

“But the reason we did it was…they say ‘faction before blood,’ right? So we figured, if we didn’t end up in the same factions, we’d have a hard time with that rule. If we split our name, we lose the one thing that connects us. So now there’s an initiate in Erudite named Jemma Simmons, and she has the same birthday as me, and she kind of looks like me, but that’s it. We’re in different factions. We’ve got different last names. How could we possibly be siblings?” His voice cracks on the last sentence, and he hides his face in his hands, because he might start crying, and no girl except Jemma has ever seen him cry.

They’re silent for a moment, before Skye stands. “I know what we are going to do.”

“What’s that?”

“We are going to go down to the Pit. We are going to look for your parents. If you find them, you are going to hug them and tell them that you’re doing great and ask them to tell Jemma hi for you.”

“And if they aren’t there?”

“Then we are going to go get tattoos.”

He looks up. “Why in the hell would we do that?”

“Because Dauntless get tattoos.”

He’s starting to understand. “And we’re Dauntless,” he says, needing her to confirm it.

“That’s exactly it. We are absolutely Dauntless.”


	11. Chapter 11

Skye wakes up in the middle of the night. She thought she had heard a familiar sound, but there’s no way it could be here. _I must have dreamed it,_ she thinks, and rolls over to go back to sleep.

A moment later, she sits straight up in bed. _There it is again!_ She gets out of bed and slips out of the dormitory without waking anyone else.

For a third time, she hears the three-note whistle used in Amity as a doorbell of sorts, to indicate that a friend was coming in the house. No one in Amity locks their doors; instead, manners dictate that one announce one’s presence by whistling this particular pattern. She follows the sound of the whistle down a hallway, around a corner, and stops dead in her tracks.

Lincoln, however, breaks into a run. Wrapping his arms around her, he whispers “It’s so good to see you” into her ear.

“Lincoln! What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see you,” he says, as if it should be obvious.

“And I’m happy to see you, really, but…you’re not allowed to be here.” Skye hears footsteps behind her, coming from the dorm. “Lincoln, someone’s coming. Hide!”

Leo comes around the corner before Lincoln has a chance to find a hiding spot. “Who’s this?” he asks, looking from Skye to Lincoln and back to Skye.

Lincoln offers Leo a hug of greeting, but Leo steps back. “Are you one of Mary Sue’s friends?” Lincoln asks, still amiable.

Leo gets a look of incredulity on his face. “ _Mary Sue_?” 

“Leo, please go back to bed.” When he doesn’t move immediately, Skye turns to him and places her hands on his shoulders. “I will explain everything, I promise. Just… _please_.”

“All right,” Leo responds, still suspicious, and turns to go back the way he came.

“I go by Skye now,” she tells him, slipping into an empty training room so they won’t be so easily overheard.

Lincoln’s face falls. “Why? Why would you change your name?”

“Mary Sue’s not exactly a Dauntless name,” she explains. “Actually, it’s a kind of terrible name altogether.”

“Skye,” he says, the new name slipping hesitantly off his tongue, “I need to ask you something.”

“What is it? What could possibly be so important that you’d sneak out of Amity, into the Dauntless compound—which I don’t even know how you did, by the way—to come ask me?”

“Why did you leave?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Why would you leave Amity? It’s a beautiful place. I thought—I thought you’d make your life there. Out in the fields, in the farms, under the open sky, coming home every evening to break bread with people who love each other and care for each other—what is there in this dark cave that’s so much better than that life?”

“Lincoln, I was a foster kid.”

“So were half the kids in Amity. It doesn’t make a difference—”

“It makes a difference to me!” She isn’t quite shouting, but her words come out louder than she intended. Fearing someone might overhear, she lowers her voice. “I knew that I didn’t belong in Amity. I was never supposed to be there.”

“Amity is a place where anyone belongs. Everyone who doesn’t belong other places finds their place in Amity.”

“But I believe I have a place, and it’s not where people smile at me and pretend to be my friends just because they have to.”

“No, apparently it’s where people jump off trains and get themselves killed!” Lincoln is more agitated than Skye has ever seen him. “What was so wrong with Amity that you couldn’t live there?”

“I’m not like you, Lincoln,” she replies, her voice steady. “I can’t love effortlessly and unconditionally like you can. I survived sixteen years in Amity by working hard to get along with people. I couldn’t live the rest of my life like that.”

“So getting along with people doesn’t come naturally to you, but being brave does?” he asks.

“No, being brave isn’t easy, but it’s worth the effort. I jumped off a roof, Lincoln. I’ve fought someone twice my size. Look at me! I’m not Amity anymore. And the more I learn what it means to be Dauntless, the more I think I wasn’t ever Amity to begin with.”

He shakes his head. “I feel like I don’t even know you.”

“Maybe you don’t,” she tells him sadly. “You knew Mary Sue, but I don’t think you know Skye.”

“I’m not sure I want to.” With that, he’s gone.


	12. Chapter 12

With each pounding of the bag, May chases another piece of the memory from terrorizing her. _Bam! Bam! Bam!_ Every punch makes her feel a little bit better, as if she can beat her fears into submission.

“Can’t sleep?” a voice from behind surprises her. She whirls around to see Ward.

“Initiates are supposed to be in their dormitory,” she warns him, turning back to her punching bag.

“Do you want a sparring partner?”

“No, I want you to go back to your dormitory.” With a final shot at the punching bag, she turns on him, ready to drag his ass back and lock him in the room if necessary.

He doesn’t seem afraid, or maybe he doesn’t understand what she’s willing to do. “So I’ve heard these rumors from some of the Dauntless-born. Rumors about something you did a while back that put you at the top of the Dauntless hierarchy. Are any of them true?”

“I don’t know what you’ve heard,” she answers evasively. 

“Because, if they are true, it means you could be sitting in a nice office somewhere, in charge of the entire faction. But instead, you’re here, slumming it with initiates. And I don’t really get that. Can you help me out?”

“I can _help_ you back to your dormitory,” she reiterates, adding a threatening tone to her voice.

“May.” As he says her name, he looks so innocent and young that she can almost forget the violent passion she saw in his eyes when he was fighting Skye. “I just want to know.”

She considers. “Fine. I’ll tell you, if you’ll tell me about something I want to know.”

“Sure.” He accepts her offer so readily, she wonders if he was expecting this condition.

She considers how to begin her answer. “There was a rebellion among the factionless. They were trying to tear down the faction system, and they were willing to kill anyone they had to in order to make that happen.”

“Why didn’t I ever hear about a factionless rebellion?”

“This was about twelve years ago. You’re too young to remember it. Those who do remember it don’t speak about it: too afraid that any mention of it might bring the idea back, and we’d have to deal with the same problem all over again.”

“So what did you do?”

“I stopped it.”

“But how?”

“You said you’d heard the rumors. Take away the melodrama, and you’ve just about got the story.”

He pauses, apparently pondering her answer. “Why didn’t you take the promotion they offered?”

“I didn’t want it.”

“Why not? Even if you didn’t like the job they offered, you could have any job you want. Clearly, you’re capable of much more than teaching initiates to fight.”

She does her best to stare down a boy who’s almost a foot taller than her. “There’s something you don’t seem to understand about being Dauntless, so let me clear it up for you. It’s not about how many people you can beat up or how many stunts you can do. It’s about protecting those who need my help from those who don’t deserve my mercy. Anything further than that, anything more, and you have passed from Dauntless into sadistic. Does that answer your question?”

He nods solemnly. “What did you want to know from me?”

“Why did you leave Candor?”

He is taken aback. “It’s not uncommon for Dauntless to receive Candor transfers. If anything, you should be asking Skye—”

“I’m not asking Skye. I’m asking you.”

“The only bravery that’s worth anything in Candor is the bravery required to tell the truth. And that’s the one kind of bravery I don’t have. I figured, why not get recognized for what I have, without being punished every day for what I lack?”

“So you’re not good at telling the truth?”

He shrugs, stepping backward to hide his face in shadow before he answers. “I mean, I’m not worse than average, but living in Candor, where they demand absolute honesty every minute of every day…it’s exhausting.”

They spend a moment in contemplative silence, both wondering if the other has been honest.

“Go to bed, Ward.”


	13. Chapter 13

All the Dauntless-born are more nervous about Phase 2 of initiation than they were about Phase 1. In Phase 1, they knew what to expect. More importantly, they knew that most of the transfers couldn’t possibly be a threat. With the exception of a fluke or two like Ward, no transfer could compete with the Dauntless-born who have been training to fight since they could walk. But they have been warned that Phase 2 is different; an emotional test rather than a physical one, and a test that no one, Dauntless-born or transfer, can prepare for.

Since no one wants to share theories of what’s coming, everyone finds something else to do. Some start fistfights for the fun of it; others play games of Dare. Bobbi finds a seat next to her friend Mack and rubs her eyes.

“Late night?” he teases her.

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep,” she lies easily. “Must be the nerves about the test.”

Mack shakes his head. “Bobbi, I saw you sneak out of the dorm.” He pauses for a moment. “You were meeting with that transfer boy, weren’t you?”

“Yeah. So what?” she asks defensively, seeing the disapproval in his eyes. “You jealous?” That’s not it, and they both know it.

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Bobbi. There’s two ways I see this working out: either he breaks your heart, or you break his. Of course, I think the most likely scenario is Option C: All of the above, and both of you are going to walk away from this burned.”

“Why?” she challenges. “What’s so incompatible about us?”

“He’s from Candor. You like lying too much for it to ever work between you and a Candor boy.”

“He chose Dauntless for a reason,” she retorts.

“He’s still got Candor blood running through his veins. You’ll lie to him, because you lie to everyone. He’ll leave, because Candors can’t handle that. The only question is, which one of you is going to fall in love before the relationship implodes?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not going to fall in love with him. If he does, that’s his problem.”

“Bobbi?” One of the initiation leaders is waiting by the door. “It’s time to begin.”

Mack catches her arm before she goes. “I know you’re a good liar, Bobbi,” he whispers, “but don’t lie to yourself.”

Bobbi hears the directions and a few of the words of the leader— _sit here, move your hair, injection, simulation, amygdala, hallucination_ —but her mind is on Mack’s words and on Hunter. She feels the needle pierce her neck, and then her mind goes blank.

She’s in a field, like the Amity farm she saw on a field trip when she was young. All around her, as far as she can see, there is nothing: no buildings, no people, just unending, waving crops. 

She hears a noise behind her, and she spins to greet it. If it’s an assailant she has to fight or a physical challenge she has to beat, she’s ready. What she’s not ready for is what she sees: fire, and it’s spreading fast.

She has nothing with which she can put out the fire, so she settles for the next best strategy, which is running. But by the time she’s turned her back on the flames, there are more coming from the opposite direction, and from her left, and from her right. Before she knows it, she’s surrounded in a ring of flames that has consumed the crops and is creeping inwards, towards her.

There is nowhere to go but into the flames, but she knows she can’t stay where she is. Heart pounding, she takes a running leap and tries to jump over the ring of fire. While in midair, she feels the heat and smells the smoke, but she’s managed to jump high enough that the flames can’t reach her. The instant she hits the ground, however, the agony of the fire burning her legs is almost unbearable. She screams, and begins running, looking for anywhere where the fire isn’t burning. Smoke fills her eyes and throat, and she coughs, throwing off her stride and causing her to stumble. As she puts her hands out to break her fall, the flames catch her palms. Righting herself, she clasps her hands together to smother the flames, but the time it took to stand up has already cost her. Her legs hurt more than anything she’s ever felt. Coughing and gagging on the thick black smoke, she tries to keep running, but her overtaxed lungs give out, and she collapses to the ground. Flames coat her body, and she can feel her skin melting off. She screams until she can’t scream anymore, as her world goes black.

She’s back in the room, in the Dauntless compound. She is no longer burning. Her legs are fine. She can breathe. But the feeling of being completely hopeless, of losing her body and her mind, still haunts her. She rubs the palms of her hands to reassure herself that there are no burn marks there, and then puts her hands over her face, sucking in cold, clean air as fast as she can.


	14. Chapter 14

It’s the third time Ward’s been in the room, and he already hates it. The first time, it was a room full of rotting corpses; everywhere he stepped, another rancid smell or the sound of a skull snapping assaulted his senses. The second, he’s drowning in a pool of blood, the metallic taste and foul viscosity coating the inside of his lungs as his body gasps for the air that his lips can’t find. He knows that the key to these tests is to lower his heartrate, his breathing, to force his body to calm down and ignore the fear. But in the moment, when the simulation feels so real, it’s near impossible to counteract the body’s natural defense against fear.

This time, it’s pitch black, and he’s tied to a chair. He strains against the bindings, trying to get an idea of what might be coming, but there is no give in the ropes.

He sits in the dark and silence for a while, growing increasingly more nervous about what might be coming. He takes the opportunity to focus on his breathing, on calming his body even as his mind is racing.

A loud, high-pitched screech erupts from behind him, and he jumps at the sudden sound. Silence descends upon him again, only to be broken again a few seconds later. He’s familiar with this form of torture. The irregular intervals between sound and silence are designed to drive him mad, and he knows that it’s working.

By the time the simulation ends, Ward is so agitated that he stalks out of the testing room, despite the leader begging him to _just sit a minute or two, get your senses back_.

He’s not sure how he gets there, but he finds himself in the training room, beating the tar out of a practice dummy. He hits the dummy so hard his hands hurt, but the physical pain is something to take his mind off the numbness of his mind.

“You’re Ward, right?” A tall Dauntless-born initiate comes up on the other side of the dummy.

“Yeah.” He offers no handshake, no greeting. As soon as the Phase 1 rankings were released, all of the Dauntless-born wanted to be his best friend. He likes the attention and the perks that come from friends on the inside, but right now, he wants to be alone. 

“You want to go a couple rounds?”

Ward sizes up the boy. He’s big, with broad shoulders and a stocky frame, but Ward doesn’t recognize him, meaning that he can’t have scored too high in Phase 1. Nevertheless, Ward shrugs. “Sure.”

“I’m Mack,” the boy remarks as he wraps his hands.

“Nice to meet you, Mack,” Ward says, the words flowing off his tongue. That sort of meaningless sentiment would be considered rude in Candor, but the downside of a culture where lying is acceptable is that one is socially expected to lie about the littlest things. 

The fight lasts far longer than Ward thought it would. He’s the tallest and probably the strongest of the transfers, so he’s become accustomed to only fighting people smaller than him. He lands a solid kick on Mack, one that would have brought any of the transfers to the ground, but Mack hardly moves. As they continue, trading blows and defenses, Ward learns that, while he’s certainly got more skill than Mack, there is something to be said for brute force. A punch to the stomach, and Ward staggers back, desperately struggling to recover. Mack makes his move, aiming for Ward’s chest. Ward just barely manages to deflect the worst of the blow, but the shock of the impact knocks him off his feet.

“You’re good,” Mack comments as he helps Ward back to his feet.

“Thanks,” Ward replies. “You’re great. What was your ranking?”

Mack looks down. “Let’s just say if I had been much lower, one more transfer would be here instead of me.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. How did anyone beat you? There are only two Dauntless-born ranked above me, and I’m not sure even they could take you down.”

Mack murmurs something under his breath.

“What?”

A bit louder, Mack repeats “I don’t like hurting people.”

“So you threw your fights?” Ward asks, stunned.

Mack nods. “I won just enough to keep myself from being dead last, but I’m not the kind of guy who knocks people out just because I can.”

Ward isn’t sure if Mack is implying that Ward is that kind of guy, but he figures this isn’t the time to ask. “You didn’t seem to have a problem taking me out,” he says, hoping his tone is light enough that Mack knows he’s teasing.

Smiling, Mack replies “Yeah, you looked like you could use a fight. I asked you. You agreed. Not everyone here did that.”

“Everyone chose to be Dauntless,” Ward counters.

“Being Dauntless is about a lot more than getting into pointless fights,” Mack replies. As he turns to leave, he mutters so softly that Ward is sure Mack didn’t intend for Ward to hear him as he says “Or it should be.”


	15. Chapter 15

After one week of the simulations, the rules change. The Dauntless-born join the transfers in training. May explains that the new simulations will have a goal: defeat your fears. The initiates will be conscious of the fact that they are in a simulation and will be put up against their fears. In each one, they must either force their bodies to calm down enough for the simulation to move on to the next one, or do something to face their fears, something contrary to what every fiber of their body is screaming at them. “Some of you will have more fears in your fear landscape than others,” she says. “But I’ve seen someone with fifteen fears get through faster than someone with only ten. You can’t control the number of fears you have, but you can control how you respond to them.” _Just like life,_ Hunter muses. This stage of initiation is more congruent with his ideas about Dauntlessness than any of the others.

The initiates enter their fear landscapes one at a time. “Today,” May informs them, “the simulator is designed to only put you through one of your fears. For the final test, though, it’ll go through every fear you have. The more times you go through the fear landscape in practice, the more preparation you’ll have for the test.”

A Dauntless-born volunteers to go first, leaving all the others to sit in silence. Hunter ponders how many fears he might have. May said the average was ten to fifteen. Hunter can predict a few of the things that he’s sure will be there, but what else is he afraid of? 

He waits as long as he can stand to wait before volunteering to go into his fear landscape. As soon as the needle goes into his neck, he feels the difference between this and the other simulations he’s experienced. The other simulations were like dreams: you can’t tell that they’re not real until you wake up. This simulation, though, he is conscious of the fact that this reality is not his own. 

The spiders, however, look very real. Thousands upon thousands of tiny spiders race toward him like an ocean tide rushing in. They swarm over his body, crawling into his ears and under his fingernails. He presses his lips together and covers his nose, hoping to prevent the spiders from reaching the inside of his body. Rolling about, he tries to squish them or get them to stop coming, but for every one he kills, it seems two more come to take its place.

_Face your fears._ Hunter tries to calm himself, to slow his heartrate and breathing, but he can’t stop hyperventilating from the panic of having his body covered in spiders. That means he has to go for the other option: contradicting every natural instinct he has. He tries to take a deep breath in preparation, but he realizes he’s too panicked for that. Instead, he mentally braces himself, and then opens his mouth.

The sensation of spiders inside his mouth is even worse than he thought it’d be. _I am brave_ , he reminds himself as they travel down towards his throat. _I am Dauntless._

He smashes his jaws together, feeling the crunch of the spiders between his teeth. He is about to scream, when suddenly, the spiders are gone, and he’s back in the Dauntless compound.

“Nice job,” May tells him. “That was just under two minutes. If you can get your response down to one minute per fear, you’re all set for the final test.”

“That was horrible,” he gasps.

“Yeah, but you got through it,” May points out. “No need to be afraid anymore.”

“Right,” he says, trying to assure himself. “Nothing to be scared of.”


	16. Chapter 16

It was a bad day inside the simulation today. Well, every day is a bad day, but today was something else entirely. For a moment, Skye allows herself to miss Amity, miss its simplicity and beauty, miss the comfort and support that came from everyone around her. Then, like she always does, she pushes away the thoughts of the life she used to lead. _You chose Dauntless for a reason,_ she reminds herself. 

Still, today the thoughts linger, protruding into her consciousness even as she tries to pretend them away. She finds a quiet space where she knows she can be alone. Leaning her shoulder into the wall, she tries to remind herself about the reasons she left, but the only memories that will come to mind are the happy ones, and she feels tears burning behind her eyes.

“Are you okay?” a voice comes from behind her. 

She turns, expecting to see anyone other than the boy who walks toward her. “Ward, hi. Yeah, I’m fine.” She swallows hard; the tears can fall later, but not now, not in front of him.

“You sure?” 

“Yeah.” She pauses, then asks “Why do you ask?”

He shrugs. “Thought you might need a friend, is all. I know the simulations can get pretty bad.”

“It’s still better than the first phase, though. I’m not a fan of getting the crap beat out of me.” She intended her comment to be snide, but it comes out far more bitter than she meant it to.

“You’re not…mad, are you?” He shakes his head, as if he’s horrified that she might think so low of him. “Skye, that wasn’t me. That was…it was what we had to do. I never meant for you to get hurt. I just did what I had to do.”

He smiles. “Besides, you held your own pretty well. They teach you to play possum in Amity?”

“Yeah, around the same time Candor teaches hand-to-hand combat,” she retorts.

He brushes a lock of hair off his face. “Look, I was going to ask you something. I know each faction has their own way of doing this, but I don’t know the Dauntless way, and I don’t think I could pull off the Amity way even if I knew it, so I’m just going to go for brutal Candor: I really like you, and do you think there’s any chance we could go out together some time?”

She pauses, and he takes her hesitation as a sign that she misunderstood him. “As in a date,” he supplies helpfully.

“Why?” she finally spurts out. “We have nothing in common. Girls from Amity don’t date boys from Candor.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, “but we’re both Dauntless now.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t even know if I’ll be able to make it through initiation.”

He takes her hand. Factions have different standards for physical contact. Amity embraces it, and Skye doubts that she went a single day there without at least one hug, one reassuring hand pat, one ruffle of her hair. In Dauntless, though, contact is reserved for purposeful actions: you fight your opponent, you help them off the mat, you bandage their wounds and they bandage yours. Pointless contact has no place in the practical Dauntless compound. She isn’t sure how Candor views touching, what Ward was raised to believe, but she can see in his eyes that this isn’t an empty gesture to him. The firm pressure that the pads of his fingers apply to the bones of her hand, the way his thumb fits into the crook between her thumb and forefinger, all of it tells her that this action means something.

His voice drops to barely above a whisper. “I could help you.”

“How?” she asks, startled. “Is there a secret to the simulations?”

“There’s a few tricks,” he admits. “I could teach you.”

She hesitates, then leans back, pulling her hand out of his. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“What’s in it for you?” she asks. “You’re not the kind of guy who helps someone out of the kindness of his heart. Why are you offering to help me boost my ranking?”

“Because I want to see you become a full-fledged Dauntless.”

“Why?”

“Because you were right.”

“What?”

“Amity girls don’t date Candor boys.” He gently touches her face, and she’s too startled to stop him. “But a Dauntless girl and a Dauntless boy…that wouldn’t turn any heads at all.”

He goes to leave, then stops and turns back to face her. “Well, that’s not entirely true. You’ll always turn heads.”


	17. Chapter 17

A day off from the simulation training is welcomed by all the initiates. Leo is at the front of the pack of initiates as they travel through the city, observing the jobs they may take if they make it through initiation. The higher ranked initiates will have their first choice of jobs, and those ranked lower will fight for the leftovers. Guarding the fence doesn’t hold much interest for Leo, but with his scores, he’s willing to take what he can get. There are some positions inside the Dauntless compound that Leo would take in a heartbeat, but the instructors have warned them that those positions are highly coveted. Still, the entire initiate class follows and observes the routine of even the highest-ranking Dauntless leaders. 

They sit in the back of a meeting room, where leaders from Dauntless, Candor, Amity, and Erudite argue their cases in front of a panel from the Council. As they listen to arguments regarding districting or something (for once in his life, Leo isn’t paying much attention), he notices that some other factions are also taking their initiates for a field trip today. As a group of Candor black-and-white clears the room, he sees a sea of Erudite blue crowd in to take their places. For a moment, he feels a twinge of longing, recognizing his classmates, people he would have considered friends, now forever separated from him. He rubs the calluses on his hands, reminders of the work he’s put into becoming Dauntless. He can’t let a bit of nostalgia distract him from his goal.

And then he sees her.

He recognizes his sister’s hair, pulled back into a harried ponytail. Like most of the Erudite, Jemma is taking notes on a small notepad, nodding along to the arguments made by her faction’s representative and scoffing at the logically weak challenges of the Councilmembers. She barely looks up at the people speaking, let alone look across the room at the group of tattooed and pierced hooligans whose black clothing looks like an ink stain on the pristine white seats of the Council room.

Still, he holds onto hope that she might look up. He remembers that there have been studies disproving the theory of twin telepathy, but then he remembers that that’s a problem for the Erudite, and so he fires his hope with Dauntless recklessness. _Look at me, Jemma._

She smirks at a sarcastic remark from a Candor representative.

_Look at me._

And she does.

Briefly, but she does. Her glance slips to the Dauntless crowd for no more than a few seconds, scanning the group as if she’s searching for something.

_She’s searching for me._

Waving or making any gesture toward her would be inappropriate, of course. He can only stare back at her, hoping that her gaze will land on him. When it does, he smiles, hoping to see the same smile reflected on her face. They both have their mother’s smile, everyone used to say. Surely, she should recognize her own smile, even among all these faces. Surely, she must recognize her own brother.

Her eyes pass over the Dauntless, then flick back to the speaker. The Dauntless leader gets the attention of the initiates, herding them out of the room and onto the next part of the field trip. Leo lingers in the room as long as he can, trying to get Jemma to look at him again. The last thing he sees before he’s forced to leave by the crowd of Dauntless is the back of her head.

It’s not till he gets back to the Dauntless compound and looks in the mirror that he sees, for the first time, what his sister must have seen. He’s let his hair grow out since he left Erudite, and now his gentle curls spill onto his forehead and down his neck. He wears a T-shirt and black jeans, an outfit far more casual than anything he ever wore in Erudite. But beyond the tangible changes, there’s something different in his eyes, in his stance. Before he chose Dauntless, he was always part of a pair. Everyone knew Jemma and him together, as _LeoandJemma_ , said as if it were a single word for a single person. Only since moving to Dauntless has he been identified by himself, without his sister by his side. That new individual identity gives him a new posture, a new light in his eyes.

It’s the first time he’s ever felt the need to mourn Leo Fitzsimmons, because it’s the first time he’s ever realized that the old boy is dead.

He understands now why Jemma didn’t recognize him.

But the understanding doesn’t make it hurt less.


	18. Chapter 18

The final test was hard, but it’s over. Tonight is the culmination of so many dreams he’s held but never dared to believe in. As he stands on the stage, dressed in black jeans and a black leather jacket, hearing the crowd cheer “Ward! Ward! Ward!” when his ranking is read aloud, he has become so much greater than that scared kid from Candor.

 _Tonight, I’m Dauntless,_ he thinks to himself. _In every sense of the phrase._

There’s plenty of alcohol around, but Ward doesn’t indulge. He’s picked his poison, and it’s far stronger than booze. His drug of choice takes the form of dark hair spilling down the back of a black dress that shows off more skin than would be acceptable in any faction but this one.

“Hey, Skye,” he says, oozing swagger and confidence that come from the exhilaration of the night. 

“Hey,” she replies, smiling. She’s been friendlier with him ever since he showed her the tricks of the simulation test, how you can separate yourself from the horror around you and focus on breathing _in and out, in and out_. She’s never asked how he learned that skill, and he doesn’t plan on telling her. Some things are better left buried, and what better place to bury them than in Candor, now that he’s well and truly in Dauntless?

“You look good.” It’s an understatement. She looks stunning, her dark eyes flashing amid the lights and the din of the party. Her dress gives her body a kind of glamor he never would have expected the first time he saw her. Black suits her far better than that atrocious red and gaudy gold. Her name suits her: a black sky could herald anything—the beauty of night, the destruction of an oncoming storm—but whatever it is, its power will be magnificent.

“Thanks.” Her face is flushed, and she smiles. “You don’t look bad yourself.”

“So,” he says, tracing his fingers up her bare arm, “are you one for dancing?”

She shakes her head. “Amity dancing is pretty different from this. More spinning and clapping, and fewer strobe lights.”

“Yeah, this dancing is something else. It’s the kind of thing you could lose yourself in.” 

“What about finding yourself?”

He leans in close to whisper in her ear, his lips lingering on each word. “You never know. Any minute something could wake up inside you.”

“Is that so?” Her teeth bite her bottom lip, eyes dancing to meet his.

“You want to test it out for yourself?”

In response, she puts her hand at the nape of his neck, ruffling his hair with her fingers, and leads him out onto the dance floor.

He’s dancing, but mostly he’s watching her: watching her move hesitantly at first, and then more confidently—more Dauntlessly—and then losing herself in the passion and exhilaration of having absolutely nothing to lose, and it’s then that he kisses her. He can taste the sweetness of her mouth mixed with the salty layer of perspiration on her upper lip. Deepening the kiss, he pulls her in towards him, so that he can feel every move she makes against his body. There is no such thing as too much of her skin and her heat and her mouth and _her_.

With his mouth still on hers, he pushes her off of the dance floor, her small backwards steps moving in double time to keep pace with his long legs and forward motion. He aims for one of the small couches lining the dance floor and pushes her backward onto it, allowing himself to fall on top of her. Her arms are wrapped around his head; his hands snake down her neck and torso, until they wrap under her thighs. He lifts her up and rolls the two of them around, so she’s sitting on his lap, before she even realizes.

“You’re too quick,” she breathes, before he kisses her again, cutting off any words she might have wanted to add.

As his hand slips under the hem of her dress, she pulls away from his mouth. “I’m not having sex with you on this couch,” she warns.

“It doesn’t have to be on the couch,” he replies fluidly, reaching his free hand toward her face.

She tilts her head away. “I said no, Ward.”

“And I heard you,” he assures her. “I like what we’re doing, though.”

“Your left hand is doing a little more than that.” Her tone is teasing, but the tension in her face betrays her concern. He’s gone too far.

He withdraws the offending hand. “You’re right. This isn’t the time. But you know the way you felt just then?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like the floor’s been swept out from under your feet, like you can’t breathe, like you’re drowning and you don’t know which way is up. That’s when you’re at your most stunning.”

Before she has a chance to process his words, he’s off the couch and standing up. Straightening his jacket, he whispers in her ear “If you want to feel that way again, you know where to find me.”

With that, he returns to the dance floor, accepting a drink as he melts into the crowd.


	19. Chapter 19

Bobbi has seen some Dauntless parties in her day. The Dauntless don’t half-ass anything; they work hard and they play harder. But nothing she has experienced before has prepared her for the party held for the new members of the faction. There is music and dancing and booze and people starting fistfights to celebrate their new status. Bobbi’s had so much sugar and caffeine, she doesn’t know if she’ll ever sleep again.

Instead, she finds Hunter. “Hey, you,” she says as she comes up behind him, giving him a playful push on his shoulder.

“Hey, you,” he replies. “Congratulations.”

“You, too.” They are silent for a moment: talking isn’t their strong suit, and they both know it. “Want to dance?” she finally offers.

They make their way out onto the dance floor and lose themselves in the pounding of the bass and the throng of bodies pulsing so ferociously it’s as if they are all part of something bigger. _That’s what Dauntless is,_ Bobbi realizes, as she spins around Hunter. _A place where we’re all a part of something bigger._ There are flaws in the faction system, but this, right here, this is why the factions were created. She knows without a doubt that she has something in common with every person in the room, and that makes them family, more than she could ever be family to the stuffy Abnegation or the sappy Amity or the know-it-all Erudite or the brutally honest Candor.

_He’s still got Candor blood running through his veins._

The memory of Mack’s words makes Bobbi stumble, tripping over Hunter’s feet for the first time. She manages to right herself, but she can’t get her mind back into dancing.

Hunter knows there’s something wrong— _it’s because Candor can read people,_ a tiny voice in her mind nags. He puts his arm around her and leads her off the dance floor to a small couch. He helps her sit, then sits beside her. “Bobbi? You all right?” he asks, his hand warm against her bare shoulder, the pads of his fingers gently rubbing her shoulder blade.

“Yeah, it’s just…” She stops, because she doesn’t know what’s wrong. Is it him? Is it her? Or is it just the universal tragedy of two people who, through no fault of either of their own, combine like gasoline and a spark?

“Bob?” The abbreviated form of her name rolls so easily off his lips, but she can see the tension in his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Can we find someplace quieter?” she asks, because right now, the music beating through the room is filling her with Dauntless recklessness, and while that’s what all she wants, it’s the last thing she needs.

They make their way to a practice room. She realizes it’s the same practice room they met in the night Phase 1 ended. Hunter sits down on a bench, his brown eyes digging into her blue ones.

“Bobbi.” He takes her hand, pulls her to a seat next to him. Cupping her jawline in his fingers, resting his thumb on the corner of her mouth, he whispers “What is it?”

_What did I do to deserve this? This kind, sexy, honest boy who is far too good for me?_

“You’re shaking. What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head and covers her mouth with her hand, tears biting at her eyes.

“I know something’s wrong. Talk to me. What is it?”

“You’re Candor,” she murmurs so softly she doesn’t think he could have heard.

He heard. “No,” he argues, taking a seat beside her. “I’m Dauntless.”

“We can’t change who we are on the inside, Hunter.” She’s speaking so fast now, it’s like her voice is a runaway train. “You’re always going to have a piece of Candor inside of you, and I’m always going to be me, and there’s not a force on this earth strong enough to change that, and I don’t want to hurt you, I want you to be happy, because—” She cuts herself off, but he hears what she doesn’t say.

_Because I love you._

“Bobbi, listen to me. I left Candor. I left because I couldn’t live that life. I left, and I left all of my family and everyone I’d known, so don’t you think for a second I made that decision lightly.” She allows one teardrop to fall. “You think I can’t love you because you lie? _Everybody lies,_ Bob. That’s why I couldn’t stay in Candor; they were wrong. Lying is human, just like being scared is human, and being selfish and cruel and stupid is human. We’re not our factions; we’re our flaws.”

She wipes her face. What he’s saying makes sense, but it’s also a hair’s breadth from treason. “If all the factions are wrong, then how did you choose Dauntless?”

“Dauntless and Erudite were the only two that made sense, the only two that didn’t deny human nature. Intelligence isn’t a photographic memory; it’s the love of the search for knowledge. And courage…it’s not the absence of fear; it’s the strength to overcome it.”

“So why are you here, and not in Erudite?”

He shrugs. “Blue’s not really my color.”

She grins. “You’re lying.”

“Yeah.” He takes her hand in his. “Do you still love me?”

She lays her head on his shoulder, and he gently strokes her hair. “Yeah.”


	20. Chapter 20

Skye makes her way to the one place in the compound she knows will be unoccupied: the initiate dorm. Each initiate was assigned a permanent housing unit when they formally became members of Dauntless, and they’ll all be spending the night in their new homes, if they’re not at the party or going home with someone else. 

But when Skye pushes open the door, she isn’t surprised to see someone waiting for her. She is surprised, however, that he’s wearing black. “Where did you get those clothes?” she asks Lincoln, as he embraces her and she inhales the scent of the farms of her childhood.

“I passed a laundry bin on the way in here. Figured I’d attract less attention if I blended in.” His smile is mischievous, like he’s a child who’s played a prank instead of a newly-made member of one faction who is sneaking into another. “I don’t think black’s my color, though.”

“If there were a single sober person here, you wouldn’t have passed for Dauntless no matter what you’re wearing,” she teases. Lincoln’s sensible Amity haircut, his complete lack of piercings or tattoos, and his easy smile and gently mannerisms betray him as an outsider in this world of hard edges and ferocity.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says, then cringes. Her words should be a compliment, given the Amity’s distaste for the violent lifestyle of the Dauntless. But that lifestyle is hers now, and the Amity ought to know better than to insult someone else for being different.

“It’s okay,” she reassures him, seeing an apology jump to his lips. “I understand.”

“If it makes you feel better,” he offers, “I don’t think you’d pass for Amity anymore.” He pauses, then adds “You can take that as a compliment, if you want.”

She isn’t sure how to take it. “So, how does it feel to be a member of Amity?”

“Wonderful,” he responds instantly. “It’s like my whole life has been building to this. What about you?”

“Strangely, the same,” she answers. 

He takes her hand. The gesture is an intimate one for the Dauntless, and she has to remind herself that this is a casual sign of affection for the Amity. “Can I ask you something, Skye?”

“Of course.”

His fingers run over the long bones in her hand, gently rubbing her knuckles. _This means nothing to him, right?_ “Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving Amity?”

“We weren’t supposed to talk about our choices.”

“Come on, you never once met a rule you didn’t break. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What difference would it have made?”

“I chose my faction before you.”

“I remember.” She can’t forget the sight and smell of her blood on the coals, nor can she forget the look in Lincoln’s eyes as she turned away from the red-and-gold crowd to face the Dauntless black.

“If I had known you were going to…” he trails off. 

She fills in the blank. “Are you saying you would have…joined Dauntless to be with me?”

He doesn’t say a word, but his silence speaks for him.

“Lincoln, you wouldn’t have survived initiation. You’d be factionless by now if you had chosen Dauntless.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know the Dauntless initiation, and I know you. You scream Amity from every drop of your blood. There’s no place for you in Dauntless, just like there’s no place for me in Amity. Trust me: you have no reason to regret your choice. You’re gonna live the perfect Amity life. You’ll marry some nice Amity girl, and have nice Amity kids, and you’ll be happy there.”

He shakes his head, and she sees pain in his eyes. “That’s just it. I don’t want some nice Amity girl, and I don’t want any nice Amity kids.” He lifts her hand to his face as he moves in closer. “I want you.” 

His lips are soft and hesitant on hers, but his thumb is steady against her jawline. He strokes her hair as he releases the kiss and murmurs “Be with me.”

“What? Lincoln, we can’t—”

“Take a job as a fence guard. You’ll be among the Amity farms all day, every day. It’ll be hard, but we can make it. You can have your people, and I can have mine, and we can still be together, Skye.”

“Maybe we can,” she admits, “but I won’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I made my choice,” she says. Her conviction lends strength to her voice, and she does not stutter or falter. “You made yours. I’m Dauntless. You’re Amity.”

“That doesn’t mean a damn thing, and you know it!” His voice breaks with a choked-back sob.

“We can’t go back, Lincoln. Maybe we’re proud of our choices, or maybe we regret them, or maybe both, but it doesn’t matter. _We can’t go back._ ”

He shakes his head, stunned. “When did you get so cruel?”

“This is real life. You can’t spend your life wondering what might have been. I love you.” He scoffs. “I _do,_ ” she repeats. “I always have. But this is the way things are, and there’s no way to change that.”

“Love finds a way.” It’s an Amity platitude, and he says it like a prayer.

She wraps her arms around him, and she feels his tears fall hot on her shoulder. It breaks her heart to say the words, but they need to be said. “No, it doesn’t.”


	21. Chapter 21

Even though Leo set his alarm for an ungodly hour of the morning, there’s already a crowd waiting by the time he gets to the job postings. The number of job openings in different fields is of interest to everyone, even those who are clearly fighting hangovers from the night before.

He’s given up on the hope of a leadership position. It would give him plenty of opportunities to interact with the top-ranked members of the other factions, but his scores from initiation won’t put him high enough to have his pick of the jobs, and leadership positions go fast.

All the conversation is on hypotheticals of the job openings. He overhears some people discussing the benefits and drawbacks of guarding the fence versus working in the Dauntless compound itself, whether the fresh Amity food the guards get is worth the long commute and getting soaked whenever it rains. There’s a rumor about a high-ranked initiate planning to take a menial job, with plenty of conjecture about who and what and why. 

Finally, May calls the meeting to order, and after some introductory remarks, the list of job openings is posted. There are only two positions open in Dauntless leadership, and more openings than expected for jobs in the compound: giving tattoos or patching up wounds or fighting for the entertainment of others. Leo decides that these jobs will be his first choice. There are plenty, so he’s almost guaranteed to get one, and staying amid the Dauntless makes it easier to forget his old family than being out under the open sky, seeing other factions every day. Forgetting is what he needs to do, now that he’s fully a member of Dauntless. _Faction before blood._

As expected, the two top initiates take the two leadership positions. Bobbi and Ward will work in conjunction with the other factions, negotiating for Dauntless interests in front of the council. Beside him, Skye tenses as Ward stands to accept his new position.

As May continues down the ranked list, Leo notices that there’s a highly desirable job no one has taken yet: a city guard position in the Erudite sector. He knows that he shouldn’t get his hopes up—there are still plenty of people left to choose before him. He had decided on a job in the medical center, where he could help people. But the conflict rages in him: _if the guard post’s still open, should I take it? Or should I make a clean break?_

Skye picks a job working in the tech office—a respectable job, if difficult. But she has skill with computers, and the challenge will suit her. Now there’s only three people left.

_Work in the compound. Stay loyal. Faction before blood._

Another member takes a job in the tattoo parlor.

_She’s my sister. I have to see her again, even if it’s just in passing._

Another position as a sport fighter is gone. Only one more person before Leo, and the Erudite guard post is still open. Visions of his future life pass before his eyes: marrying a Dauntless girl, having children who will grow up in this cave of danger and wonder. _They won’t even know their Auntie Jemma._

_I have to take the job. I have to see her._

_Faction before blood._

_Jemma._

The next person, a transfer from Candor, takes the last remaining guard post in the Candor sector. A deafening whisper ripples through the crowd, and Leo hears the words “faction traitor” repeated more than once.

_If I take the job, they’ll see me as a faction traitor. They’ll say I’m not a real Dauntless._

_What would I rather be: a bad Dauntless or a bad brother?_

_If I were really brave, I wouldn’t be scared of living without her._

_If I were really brave, I wouldn’t be scared of what people say about me._

_Faction before blood._

_Jemma._

“Leo Fitz?” May calls.

_Leo Fitzsimmons,_ his mind screams.

“Make your choice.”

_No matter your choice, you’ll have to live with it. For better, for worse._

_No matter the choice, it’s yours to make._

_No matter what you do with your life, it’s yours._

He stands. He says the words, watches his name written down on the list. He sits. A moment ago, his mind was racing, but now it’s oddly still, filled with just one thought.

_My life is mine._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate all of you for sticking with me through this.


End file.
